Wisteria Lodge
by notallwindows
Summary: A collection of short stories set in the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes universe, mostly featuring John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. (In progress) 3. when the bee stings: Health insurance in Victorian England is a pro-bono doctor.
1. Index

Hello, this is the index of one-shots in this collection. I will keep updating this page as I post more stories.

1\. We Finish Each Other's Sandwiches  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, G. Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes  
Warning: NA  
Word Count: 780 words  
Summary: Watson notices this about the Holmes brothers– they finish each others' sentences. (I somehow have established a precedent of posting stories on Christmas– Merry Christmas!)

2\. Clemency  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, John Openshaw (The Five Orange Pips)  
Warning: Minor Character Death, vague references to Christianity  
Word Count: 1485  
Summary: "You must not think you are the only one running away from confronting what orange pips have come to signify," he says, "I am every bit the coward you are."  
Holmes and Watson deal with the aftermath of John Openshaw's death. Takes place after The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.

3\. when the bee stings  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Wiggins  
Warning: NA  
Word Count: 1228 words  
Summary: Health insurance in Victorian England is a pro-bono doctor.


	2. We Finish Each Other's Sandwiches

1\. We Finish Each Other's Sandwiches  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes  
Warning: NA  
Word Count: 780 words  
Summary: Watson notices this about the Holmes brothers: _they finish each others' sentences_. (I have somehow established a precedent of posting stories on Christmas– Merry Christmas!)

* * *

"An old soldier, I perceive," said Sherlock.  
"And very recently discharged," remarked the brother.  
"Served in India, I see."  
"And a non-commissioned officer."  
"Royal Artillery, I fancy," said Sherlock.  
"And a widower."  
"But with a child."  
"Children, my dear boy, children."  
"Come," said I, laughing, "this is a little too much."

\- _The Greek Interpreter_

* * *

Watson notices this about the Holmes brothers: _th_ _ey finish each other's sentences_ , he thinks, half-awed.

He tries it with Holmes the next time, on a case.

"The Montague family needs to be–" Holmes starts to say to Lestrade, and Watson tries to pre-empt what Holmes is thinking.

 _The family is in obvious danger, threatened by the worst of men with no qualms at all about violence, the answer is obvious–_

"Barricaded in their homes for the next week or so," he says, just as Holmes says: "evacuated to the south of Plymouth immediately."

Holmes stares at him oddly, and repeats himself.

Watson feels shame-faced, and tries to pretend nothing has happened. He gives a careless tilt of his hat, and excuses himself before either Holmes or Lestrade can comment on his aberration.

They spend a gruelling day travelling from London to Plymouth, and Holmes is too pre-occupied with setting a trap to catch the blackmailers that he barely glances at Watson, for which he is grateful. Watson thinks that Holmes will pick the abandoned cottage by the seaside as the hideout, but he chooses the apartment in the heart of the small city, where he pays the local urchin to keep a lookout. He thinks Holmes will ambush the blackmailers in the apartment itself, but Holmes plans the operation at the train station, where he calculates that the men will arrive before the week is up. Dejected, Watson stops trying to anticipate any of Holmes' commands, and keeps his head down for the rest of the day. He does not give his opinion even when Holmes asks for his thought on the case.

Holmes shoots him concerned looks for the rest of the day, but doesn't comment on his behaviour. Lestrade is blissfully unaware of his petulance, and continues blustering around.

Finally, Holmes concludes the operations when the sun has long set, and Watson's teeth are left chattering as he freezes in his coat. On the train in their carriage, Holmes and Lestrade trade opinions on the case– mostly Holmes correcting Lestrade, although the man does offer some insights which make Holmes pause. Watson feigns an unprecedented interest in the scenery flashing by his eyes– although, really, it is too dark to see anything.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Holmes beckons at Watson.

"It's really dark, outside," Watson says, unthinkingly. "Moreso than London, I've noticed."

"Ah, light pollution," Lestrade says, sagely.

"Light pollution?" Holmes turns to Lestrade, and Watson is relieved when the thread of conversation changes.

They part ways with Lestrade back at the station in London. Watson dreads being alone with Holmes, and he feigns sleep on the carriage back to Baker Street. He knows he is overreacting, but he doesn't want to have to explain that _, I saw your brother and you complete each others' sentences and I tried to do the same, but obviously it didn't work, did it?_

Watson does not know when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up, he is back in his own room and in bed, and he realises that Holmes must have carried him up the seventeen steps to their apartment and put him down on his bed.

Oh.

He's distracted by the growl of his stomach, and he pads out of his room to find something in the kitchen, when he finds Holmes sitting by the fire in the living room.

"What time is it?" he asks blearily.

"Oh, three," Holmes says nonchalantly, and Watson realises that there is a sandwich on a plate balanced precariously on the armrest.

"Why are you up?"

"Thinking about what our next move should be, once the criminals realise that the Montagues have evacuated."

Of course.

There is a silence, and Watson almost waits for Holmes to ask about his dejection today.

Instead, Holmes holds out the plate towards him.

"Do you want the rest of my sandwich?" Holmes asked. "You haven't eaten dinner."

Watson's stomach growls again, and he laughs, embarrassed.

"Yeah, that'd be great," he says, smiling.

He takes the half of the sandwich that Holmes hadn't eaten, and sits at his usual chair. The fire is roaring, and he feels warm and sated sitting across Holmes.

Finally Holmes gives a long yawn, stretching his feet towards the fire.

"Goodnight, o' Watson," he murmurs. Then, "tell me about it tomorrow."

 _Yeah_ , Watson thinks, smiling at his retreating back, _I will_.

-END-


	3. Clemency

2\. Clemency  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, John Openshaw (The Five Orange Pips)  
Warning: Minor Character Death, vague references to Christianity  
Word Count: 1485  
Summary: "You must not think you are the only one running away from confronting what orange pips have come to signify," he says, "I am every bit the coward you are."  
Holmes and Watson deal with the aftermath of John Openshaw's death. Takes place after The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.

* * *

 _Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. [Openshaw] began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from [his] lips at the sight of his face. […]_

 _"What is it, uncle?" [he] cried._

 _"Death," said [his uncle], and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving [him] palpitating with horror._

 _"Holmes," I cried, "you are too late."_

 _"Ah!" said he, laying down his cup, "I feared as much. How was it done?" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved._

 _[...]_

 _We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him._

 _"That hurts my pride, Watson," he said at last. "It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death–!"_

 _\- The Five Orange Pips_

* * *

As I have enclosed above, such is the adventure of the five orange pips that puzzled Holmes (and by extension, myself), during one of the late autumn days. The death of Openshaw hung over our heads, and for a long time, we kept a watch on the newspaper, awaiting any news of the Lone Star.

Often, I found myself thinking, forlornly, that _even if news came that the Lone Star had indeed been captured, nothing could be done to reverse the obdurate death of poor Openshaw_ … At times, seeing Holmes' fervour as he flipped through the newspaper, I felt the instinct to remind my friend that there was nothing more to be done for our unfortunate client, and that he should rest his thoughts of avengement. Yet, it was reason that informed me that Holmes must have been painfully aware of the same truth that I had come to realise. It would be an unkindness, now, to interrupt his grief with such obtuse pronouncements.

Although I find myself a hardy man, having survived a war, I can hardly say that the incident left no mark on me. Weeks, no, months, after, I found myself shivering whenever I came across the pips and seeds of citruses, but especially oranges. I imagined poor Openshaw opening the envelope, to find the dried seeds tumbling out, and the loneliness and fear that he must have experienced in the last moments of his life. The chill of the dark water into which he tumbled for the last time. I found that I could no longer look at the innocuous orange without seeing it as a portend of death.

I hardly expected Holmes to be suffering the same aversion– after all, he was a much more seasoned man than me, a veteran in dealing with the particular unpleasantness of crime.

Yet, I had underestimated the depths of my companion's sense of his own culpability. I had not considered the guilt and regret that had come to hang on his conscience. It was only later– years after the case, when Holmes confessed to me sombrely over a nightcap that he still rewound over and over, occasionally, the details of that singular case in his mind as though reviewing a game of chess. If he had not commanded Openshaw's return to Horsham, would his life have been spared? If he had accompanied the man to the station, commanded him to go by a different route than Waterloo, advised him to stay away from bridges (though how was he to know?)–

I myself, having been a player of chess in my youth, knew at once the deep frustration that had been plaguing Holmes when he confessed of his constant replaying in his head of the problem. In the past, often had I gone over games in my head obsessively, wondering what would have happened had I moved the rook and not the knight on the tenth move, or if I had opened more effectively or even if I had attempted the Arabian checkmate instead of Anastasia's… It is only more difficult to imagine how potent the regret, how infinitely more compelling the alternate scenarios must be, when the pieces are not chessmen but human lives…

In any case, it was Holmes who made a move to confront the guilt that had come to hang over us since the end of the case. The ghost of poor Openshaw himself may as well have become the third resident of 221B, for he occupied our thoughts often, although neither Holmes nor I confessed to this.

One day in chilly November, Holmes was pacing in front of the fire composing an addendum to his monograph on the ashes of various cigarettes and tobaccos while I was re-reading _The Old Man and the Sea_ , when he stopped suddenly.

"We must do something about it," he cried. "We must put an end to this."

"An end to what?" I wish I could say I sprung up from my chair, but at my age, it is more of a feeble fumbling.

"Why, Watson, have you not noticed that we haven't eaten a clementine, a mandarin, a navel orange, a satsuma, or any sort of citrus in well over two months?"

I was embarrassed that he had noticed. I had thought that I was being subtle when I firmly informed Mrs Hudson that 221B would no longer consume any orange of any variety in the foreseeable future, and asked for her to switch our fruit supply to the banana (which had no such pips to speak of– even watermelons and apples were not exempt, for their seeds were similar enough to that of the orange to cause a deep-seated fear in me).

"I am sick of eating the banana! It is making me jaundiced, Watson. Jaundiced." Holmes declared, spreading his long arms and gesturing wildly.

"There is nothing wrong with the banana!" I said passionately, although I too had gotten sick of the fruit.

"There isn't," Holmes agreed, "but there is something wrong with not eating pitted fruits because of– because of!"

I held up my hand, and Holmes stops– he doesn't have to finish the sentence; it was abundantly clear what he was alluding to. There was a pregnant pause, and I felt slightly sick, now that we had gotten the issue into the open. Holmes looks uncomfortable, but extremely determined, and we stare at each other. I am the one to look away first.

"I am terrified," I said, frankly and without pretence.

"Oh, Watson," Holmes sighs, and falls into his chair. "To be honest, so am I. It is a daunting failure, a most incommensurable tragedy, and– I too, must confess: I have been every bit as responsible as you have been in avoiding pitted fruits–"

"But it was I who told Mrs Hudson to switch our fruit supply!" I inhaled sharply, hardly daring to believe what I was hearing.

"Yes," Holmes winces, running his hand through his thin hair, "but who do you think has been bribing the fruit vendor to sell the banana fruit, a _tropical_ harvest, during the midst of harshest winter that England has experienced in years?"

I am stunned into silence, and Holmes smiles wanly and waggles his long finger at me.

"You must not think you are the only one running away from confronting what orange pips have come to signify," he says, "I am every bit the coward you are."

"But Holmes–" I found myself protesting such a point, for Holmes was undoubtedly the better man of us both, and I could not imagine him succumbing to the fear and guilt that had gripped me.

He shushes me, waving an impatient hand. "No, you overrate me grossly, Watson– I am. That is why, I have taken it to myself to purchase an orange."

He walks over to his coat hanging on the coat rack, and from the unfathomable depths of his pocket, produces a single clementine. The impact is more dramatic than any description of mine can ever hope to achieve– the orange, clutched within his pale fingers, was like an orient pearl– it was the first time in over two months or so that an orange had made its way into 221B. I could not take my eyes away from it.

"Are we going to eat it?" I whispered, not entirely sure why I was speaking in such a reverent tone.

"No," Holmes smiled, "though I suppose that may also be a solution. No, Watson, we are going to plant it."

"New life, from an omen of death?" I was impressed by Holmes' delicacy and poetry.

"Yes," Holmes says, clapping his hands together as if in prayer, "For our deceased friend too, may he Rest in Peace. Clemency, Lord, upon his soul– and upon us too, us poor, helpless worms."

-END-


	4. when the bee stings

3\. when the bee stings  
Universe: Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle  
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Wiggins  
Warning: NA  
Word Count: 1228 words  
Summary: Health insurance in Victorian England is a pro-bono doctor.

* * *

After starting my private practice and moving out of 221B, Holmes and I have fallen into an easy routine of meeting once every fortnight at some eating establishment of our choosing– sometimes a pub, other times a restaurant. I remember this incident perfectly well, because it has only been three days since our last meeting across a gas-lit table on a diner in Oxford Street. He seemed to be well, and our conversation wandered aimlessly from inconsequential topic to inconsequential topic– Holmes' had hit a dry spell in his practice, as had I, and neither of us had anything particularly sensational or interesting to share– before finally lending on the gauche décor on the diner that we both found distasteful.

"Say, I hate how he stares at us," Holmes said conversationally, casually gesturing with his fork. I knew he was referring to the stuffed deer mounted on the wall above the mantel, so extremely out of place set against the flower-patterned wallpaper. I had noticed the deer when we entered the diner, but thankfully from where I was sitting, it was out of my line of sight. Holmes, however, was facing it head-on, and whenever his eyes drifted to the top of my head, I knew that he was having a staring contest with its glassy eyes.

I digress. That night, as I was preparing to retire to my chambers, the door to my consulting-room burst open not a moment after the bell on the door gave an alarming jangle. I was annoyed, as you can imagine, at the fellow who was barging into my clinic, both for his lack of decency and manners, and for his lack of respect for my opening hours, etched cleanly and ever so noticeably on a placard on the door.

 _JOHN WATSON,_  
 _CONSULTING PHYSICIAN_  
 _TEN TO SIX_

It was now at least seven thirty.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw that the person who had so rudely forced his way into my quarters was not some hooligan off the streets but my dear friend Sherlock Holmes. He was as pale as a spectre, and wildly dishevelled, so very different from when I had last seen him. For a wild moment I thought that I must have misremembered the dates, and that I had missed our fortnightly appointment. Then I recall that my recent memory of the awkwardly-mounted deer's head was too fresh to have been from two weeks ago. For the life of me, I could not conceive the reason behind his ghastly appearance, how someone who had been in the pink of health just three days ago could descend to his current frazzled state.

"Holmes!" I exclaim most immediately, noting the palour and deep creases in his brows.

"My dearest Watson, Wiggins is ill!" he says, in lieu of "good evening", or "how have you been?"

"Who?" I ask: he addresses the name as if it ought to be familiar to me, but for the life of me I cannot remember having ever made the acquaintance of a "Mister Wiggins".

"It's– I–," he struggles to string words together, his eyes wide as he gestures with his hands. He was so distraught that he simply stood moving his hands for a good while, and I had never seen my friend in such a state before. It moved me oddly, almost to a state of shock myself.

"Grab your coat, oh! and grab your toolkit: we must leave now: it is of utmost urgency–" Sherlock finally gasped out.

His own state convinced me of the urgent nature of his request without any need for further evidence. Taking my trusty clutch and grabbing my scarf from the coat stand, I rush out of my office adjusting my hat after Holmes, who was already running towards a waiting cab.

Only on the cab, us having settled in familiar positions across each other, does Holmes take a deep breath, and his posture unfurls itself like a tightly-coiled spring unwinding. He collapses, almost bonelessly, into his seat.

"Thank God, Watson," he says, "apologies for my presumption, but I was hoping you'd take this case pro-bono– Wiggins and his companions would simply not allow me to pay for the bill, and I told them not to be absurd, but I am afraid it is impossible–"

"Oh, no, it is fine," I say, utterly confused and unsure but sincere at the same time. "I can take a pro-bono case– for Mister Wiggins–"

"Thank you," Holmes says, grasping my hand with his spindly fingers. There was a wan smile on his face, before he leans his head against the glass of the carriage, staring at the droll streets of London. I stare for a moment at his reflection, grey and melancholic, set against the bright yellow of the gas lamps on the street, and wonder who Wiggins is.

"The bullshit capitalisms of our times makes everything impossible, you realise," he says suddenly, turning to look at me. "Child labour laws are lax enough that– I seriously fear for Wiggins should he be sacked with the burden of the bill–"

"Holmes! I don't know who Wiggins is!" I interrupted at last.

"Oh," Holmes says, blinking slowly. "Oh, no, I. I knew that. I–" He paused mid-sentence, and his face is composed whimsically into a crooked half-smile for a moment, before it relaxes, and Holmes lets out a small chuckle.

"They do say that laughter remedies all," Holmes says, grudgingly. "I have to admit, I have been preoccupied with Wiggins' case, and have scarcely had cause for any sort of joy."

I stare at him.

"Wiggins is one of those urchin children of the Baker Street Irregular, whom you had the pleasure of meeting during that case you so cleverly dubbed _The Sign of the Four_ – yes, I do read your pamphlets–"

"Oh," I say, chagrined, slowly placing in one of the dim corners of my mind that such a character had existed, one of the boys who had been the leader of that particular band of scraggly urchin children. "What happened to him?"

"I wish I knew! It could be anything from the whooping cough to a common cold. He has developed some sort of a cough, and such mundane hiccups are elevated to the levels of crises when among the urchin boys, for they all live together and may at any moment infect each other, not to mention that they're all too poor to seek a physician - Alistair reported Wiggins' cough to me just an hour ago, and since then I have advised them all to leave their leader– loyal band of bandits they are, some of the foolhardier boys absolutely refuse to leave Wiggins' side, I've had to bodily prise them from his side–"

I nod, empathetic.

"I'm sure Wiggins will be fine after some bloodletting," I said in my best and most reassuring voice.

Holmes slums again into his seat, almost as if he had expelled all his fight in one great heave.

"God almighty, I wish we had some sort of welfare programme for the disenfranchised," he says, leaning his arm against his eyes. "Some sort of functioning healthcare programme that doesn't rely on the goodwill of a kindly doctor."

"You are ahead of the times, Holmes," I inform him. "You propose methods we are yet ready for."

"One can wish, Watson," he says, tiredly.


End file.
